India in Olympics

Norman Pritchard won two silver medals for India in the 1900 Paris Olympics. And after that it was not until 1952, when Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav won a bronze in wrestling, India's medal tally rose above one. Besides these two medals India did not manage to win any other events other than in hockey until 1996.

At this point in time, for someone judging Indian sports from a 100 year Olympic history, Hockey was a natural choice for a national sport. Because, it seemed, a nation of one billion played nothing but Hokey. But after 1996 India won medals in Tennis, Weightlifting, Shooting, Etc.

This year India doubled its previous medal count, a total of 6 medals. This is the best medal count for India in  all of its Olympic history. Despite the increase in medal count India still remains the last in the list of per-capita medals. You can witness this yourself from the chart titled PerCapita Medal History. The Scroll on  the right takes you through 1956 to 2008. The size of the bubble indicates the per-capita medals and the color indicates average fertility rate per woman in that year.


The per-capita medal count for India is very difficult to change. Mostly because of a large denominator. Even if India won most of  962 medals in Olympics it could rank below Norway or Sweden in per-capita medals. However, the point is; Indian medal count is low.  You may see this from the Olympic_ History chart. The pie Chart shows the split of Gold, Silver and Bronze medals and how it has progressed over the years.  The chart shows India by default. You could select any country from the list on the right hand side for comparison,  and you will notice the Indian Pie shrink.(in most cases)

In an attempt to understand what contributes to increase in medal count, I looked at China and Korea which have sprouted their medal tally in the last few years. (red and pink lines in the "Pattern" graph). Until 1972 Korea won only Judo, Boxing and Wrestling medals and China won medals in Swimming and Diving. With the increase in medal tally,  you will also notice that their portfolio of medals spreads across a wider range of sports. (The same is true for India). This is probably an indication that India's medal tally will also improve going forward.


(The spike you see for Canad, Australia and some EU nations in 1984 is because Soviet Union had boycotted the 1984 Olympics and there were fewer countries participating.)

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